Pathetic, putrid performance all round.

Easy game next week to rebound against the reigning 2 time premiers!

Interesting to hear kings presser.

Would be interestingto see if the club releases footage of him talking to the players after the game. Hope he gave them some sort of spray

3 minutes ago, Dees1911 said:

Not sure Culley has been seen to go missing so far this year

He was very poor today.

9 minutes ago, Lil_red_fire_engine said:

How could they have such work rate both ways and attack with the ball and at the man and then put up that.

Great to see TMac and Melksham to 250 but they both need to go (Salem not far behind).

Lindsay, Windsor, Culley too reactive and just waited timidly for Essendon to win the ball. JVR has used most of the tickets he built up round 1.

Our lack of shifting to a man on man to stop there short kicks and also the lack of manning up Robert’s both poor from a coaching viewpoint.

How King and we respond next week will be interesting to watch.

Add to that, Langford often gets lauded for his good games, but doesn't get called out in his ordinary ones - today was one of them.

Was also very disappointed in Langdon, Sparrow, Chandler, Steele, Gawn and co that should have done far more.

I do think umpiring, momentum and the footy Gods were against us today but this was a game we should absolutely have won, but didn't.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

The ultimate reality check for a recently over-hyped team with glaring weaknesses.

Just a few examples, against low-standard opposition:

Both Picketts need to bring more than spectacular cameos.

TMac well off the pace as middle age approaches.

Tholstrup - brains needed as well as enthusiasm.

Lever - once a defensive rock, now a pebble.

Van Rooyen - one good game so far in five.

Windsor - so much hype, so little delivery.

Sharp - the Lions saw his limitations.

Midfield - what midfield?

Rivers - apparently not good enough even to feature in King's selection frame.

And so on for all the others except the mighty Max, without whom we would (shudder!) be even worse.

And since there is currently almost no squad depth, I'd say our coach now faces a King-sized selection headache.

And if any of this is proved wrong in coming weeks, I would be absolutely delighted to confess my poor judgment.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Unfortunately part of the old Melbourne is still there

1 minute ago, Dee-tonator said:

Rivers - apparently not good enough even to feature in King's selection frame.

Injured. (knee).

My summary of that performance

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by deegirl

12 minutes ago, roy11 said:

Great goal though

13 minutes ago, roy11 said:

Great goal though

13 minutes ago, roy11 said:

Great goal though

What is happening with Harvey, i had him pegged as our next great hope.

2nd yr blues maybe ??

5 minutes ago, Dees1911 said:

He looked better when moved forward in 2nd half.

Other point should be is where did Van Rooyen go after and 1 .

Must of already hit performance base in this year's contract

JVR has been MIA since it was revealed he has a mindfulness coach🤦‍♂️

Outplayed and outcoached to allow 126 extra uncontested possessions means you are not picking up an opponent and allow them to move the ball at their speed. One only has to look at the Pies, and I know they have not set the world on fire, but when they don't have the ball in hand, they sprint to the opponent even if it's 10 metres away to apply pressure to the ball carrier. Salem's effort on Kaco before halftime showed that it was weak. There are still a lot of faults to fix, and it looked like players going into old-style plays, but King has seen some good and the ugly today. They will learn to adjust; I'm just not sure they can do it with Salem, McDonald, and Lever in the backline. Howes is still learning, and Turner gives his all. Yes, it was disappointing, and one can hope the coaches learn from it and make the adjustments next week, which will tell us that.

Short break and 5 weeks in and our young players and veterans hit the wall isn’t a huge surprise.

First time all year King got selection wrong and it wasn’t really his fault. Laurie had to go out. Fritsch had to come in. Nothing else was ready to go.

But it shows why we can’t overload on talls and non defensive mediums and need to pick as many pressure and running types as we can (which isn’t many).

In what we always knew was going to be Essendon's grand final, our failure to give a modicum of effort was just embarassing.

The mental fragility clearly remains and King has his work cut out for him to rid our club of a rotten mentality that is clearly pervasive. I thought the carlton and gold coast games proved we had turned the corner and in some respects we have, but the inability to stand up to a loser club who probably wont win another game for the rest of the season clearly demonstrates that this group won't accomplish anything until they start winning the battle between the ears.

Let's be honest, we all saw this coming from a mile away.

Dr. Melbourne will cure all your ills.

We will hopefully learn more from this loss than if we had lost against gold coast

you can talk about game plans and team selection all you like, but without pressure none of it matters

why no heat today? not acceptable to pick and choose

i expect us to come out against the Lions breathing fire

My issue was that we were slow, disinterested, displayed appalling skills, our mids were practically non existent, our defenders looked discombobulated, our forwards were…um…did we field a forward line?

While Max has had much better games, how is it possible that someone so dominant in the ruck (28 disposals and 34 hit-outs to their total of 22), how is it that he could get so little assistance?

Overall, it was a terrible performance.

And please, please let’s not bring the umpires into this… yes they were bad, but they missed a lot of frees in both directions. They had no impact on the end result.

11 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

We did go 2-0 at Adelaide in 5 days in 2024.

Scott did the same thing last year but obviously nobody watched the game as part of the prep. Or it was never mentioned, or the players did not implement. One of those.

0-3 there last year though.

Just now, hardtack said:

My issue was that we were slow, disinterested, displayed appalling skills, our mids were practically non existent, our defenders looked discombobulated, our forwards were…um…did we field a forward line?

While Max has had much better games, how is it possible that someone so dominant in the ruck (28 disposals and 34 hit-outs to their total of 22), how is it that he could get so little assistance?

Overall, it was a terrible performance.

And please, please let’s not bring the umpires into this… yes they were bad, but they missed a lot of frees in both directions. They had no impact on the end result.

Probably cos 75% of his hit outs and disposals go to opposition !!

Official Danger game. Any hint of complacency and we will get done. Bring out out all the cliches. Keep the [censored] lid on, no drinking any bathwater of any kind least of all your own. https://demonland.com/forums/topic/67214-pregame-rd-05-vs-essendon/?do=findComment&comment=2767825

Obviously they didn't heed my warning 5 days ago..

Upon reflection of my previous post, I think it's ridiculous that we expect old Max to dominate for us every week. We've come to rely and depend on this far too much and other teams work it out.

We simply must play young Max Heath next week. I don't care if he only takes 4 marks and has 5 possessions for the game, we need someone to take the physical and physiological heat off Gawn as well as developing an alternative for the future. The Moose 🫎 is the man for the job - time we give him a go.

Need to do a welfare check on Ghosty.

3 minutes ago, Tom Dyson said:

Let's be honest, we all saw this coming from a mile away.

Reader, no-one saw this coming from a mile away.

10 minutes ago, Dee-tonator said:

The ultimate reality check for a recently over-hyped team with glaring weaknesses.

Just a few examples, against low-standard opposition:

Both Picketts need to bring more than spectacular cameos.

TMac well off the pace as middle age approaches.

Tholstrup - brains needed as well as enthusiasm.

Lever - once a defensive rock, now a pebble.

Van Rooyen - one good game so far in five.

Windsor - so much hype, so little delivery.

Sharp - the Lions saw his limitations.

Midfield - what midfield?

Rivers - apparently not good enough even to feature in King's selection frame.

And so on for all the others except the mighty Max, without whom we would (shudder!) be even worse.

And since there is currently almost no squad depth, I'd say our coach now faces a King-sized selection headache.

And if any of this is proved wrong in coming weeks, I would be absolutely delighted to confess my poor judgment.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Add Cully to that. Got a new contract during the week and did almost nothing today.